Amsterdam is a very walkable city, offering an endless kaleidoscope of captivating sights and sounds. It’s easy to get lost because one canal pretty much looks like the next and the street names are tongue-twistingly incomprehensible; but it’s no big deal if you just remember this little trick I learned many years ago during my first visit. I was travelling with a friend from the Grand Canyon and we were on a mission to sample as many coffee shops as we could in a week. So, we were pretty much in a stoner daze the whole time we were there. To be honest, I don’t remember much. We kept getting lost and turned around – not that it really mattered because we had no place we needed to be. Nevertheless, it was aggravating to never really know where we were. And then we learned the “steeple trick”. This doesn’t work in every city, but it’s a sure fire way to get where you want to go without google, or even looking at the street names, if you are in a fairly flat city like Amsterdam with good lines of sight. We would take out our trusty tourist map and determine where we wanted to go next – let’s say, the Van Gogh Museum on the south side of the city, in the Museum District – and then we just followed the church steeples that lined up in the direction we wanted to go and we always arrived to our destination without ever having the slightest clue where the hell we were.
After that, it’s just a simple matter of making sure you don’t get run over by a bike, scooter, or car. There are surprisingly few cars in Amsterdam, and they are all tiny little things, but the bicyclists are EVERYWHERE, day and night, and they haul ass. Their bells alert you of your impending doom like the musical score to the city The cobblestone streets are quite narrow with sidewalk strips that are often blocked by bicycles chained to whatever doesn’t move, so you need to be on your toes at all times. If you step off the sidewalk, cross a street, or come out of a shop, you need to look both ways before you make your move. And the basic rule of thumb is this: “Don’t walk in the middle of the street” – ANY street, or even an alley. Stay on the sidewalks and hug the walls.
You would think that you would see accidents all the time, but I never saw a single collision – countless near misses, including with yours truly – but we heard lots of horror stories about near fatalities. So, walking in Amsterdam can be a full contact sport. And the Amsterdamers are incredibly nonchalant about the whole thing. No one wears a helmet and I even noticed quite a few riders texting or chatting on the phone.
Every European town we have recently been to offers free walking tours. And if you are a cheap, worthless bastard, they are indeed free. No catches. The guides are usually happy-go-lucky students who speak passable English and they lead you around the old part of their city for 2-3 hours, and when it’s over, you tip them what you thought it was worth. I saw several Europeans give the equivalent of 75 cents. The word on the street is that Americans are always the best tippers and the guides and waiters love us. (Given how Europeans uniformly feel about Trump, it’s nice to know we can still do something right.) Inna and I generally give 20 euro ($23), regardless of the quality of the guide. And if the guide is good, we tip them another two. The free tours are always the best tours in town because it’s in the guide’s self-interest to be entertaining.
We decided to go with the company (there are three) that the locals said was by far the best called “FREEDAM TOURS Amsterdam”, leaving daily at 11 and 2. The tour left from the Oude Kerk (Old Church) which was only five minutes from our hotel. The brochure which we picked up in our hotel said to go to the front of the church and look for the guide who would be holding a yellow umbrella. Inna wanted to kick back and rest because she was still a bit jet lagged, so I did the 11, with the owner Sergio (the guy flashing the peace sign below), and Inna went at 2 and did the tour with Sebastian.
I had a ball for the next three hours, roaming the city and chatting it up with the very animated Sergio, who was mostly interested in explaining what makes Amsterdam tick, versus lots of historical facts. The group size was limited to 25 people and we had just about the max. As the owner of a bike tour business in Annapolis, I can tell you that the free tour concept is more about an “experience”, rather than a regurgitation of stuffy history, and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting any large city in Europe.
The red door on the church below hearkens back to the 1400s, when the Catholic church granted absolution (for a fee) to the sailors who were whoring about while ashore. Red has always been the color of sex. And behind the big red door of the old church was where you went to pay for your sins.
The Oude Kerk is located in the heart of the Red Light District and we stopped to check out some of the wild sex shops and the Erotic Museum. Prostitution is big business in Amsterdam and is a huge draw for spectators and participants alike.
One of the interesting stops at the beginning of our walk was Oost-Indissh Huis (East India House), a magnificent building constructed in 1606, during Amsterdam’s Golden Age when the Dutch East India Company dominated the world spice trade. It is now owned by the University of Amsterdam and houses their department of sociology. The Dutch cornered the spice market by revolutionizing how goods were transported. Trade was originally conducted with big ships. It was risky business and only the super rich could afford such an expensive gambit because if you lost a ship in a storm, or to pirates, it was a catastrophic loss. The Dutch couldn’t afford to play that game, so they started using little ships – lots and lots of little ships. So if a ship was lost at sea, it was no big deal. Utilizing this clever business model, they eventually ended up controlling the trade routes to Africa, Asia, the Baltic, India, Indonesia, and North America, and in the process, became the richest people on earth. They funded their extensive operation by creating the world’s first stock exchange. Almost every businessman in Amsterdam owned some stock in the company and in any given year, they would see a return on their investment of over 100 percent!
After visiting the stock exchange, we passed the city’s smallest house. The house was adorned with the Triple X’s, which is the city’s coat of arms. The flag dates back to 1505, and has nothing to do with sex – though that’s what most people think it means. They are actually inverted St. Andrew’s crosses and legend has it that they were adopted by the rich to ward off fire, flood and the black death. It has been referred to as the “most badass flag in the world” and it’s certainly possible that the triple x-rated porn logo of today comes from the Amsterdam flag because of Amsterdam’s connection to prostitution.
The Dutch are clever people. Amsterdam houses are built so they lean slightly forward. This is an engineering trick to facilitate the moving of goods into the buildings which have very narrow staircases. Everything goes in and out of the large windows. Each old house has a sturdy bracket at the top of the roof rigged for a pulley, so that the big, heavy stuff can be hoisted aloft. By giving the house a forward lean, it ensures that your piano or breakfront don’t crash into the house while they are being raised into the air.
Each apartment building and house has a mail slot by the door. I noticed that most of them had little black decals with the word NEE in yellow. Sergio said that meant: no junk mail. The red labels mean it’s okay to leave unsolicited mail.
The Netherlands are also famous for their tulips, and there are very popular tulip markets all over the town where you can by flowers and seeds.
There are seven rings of stagnant brown canals encircling the old city, and we walked west over cute little bridges from one neighborhood to the next, past Chinatown, storybook cafes with outdoor seating, and many public works projects. They are always fixing the crumbling canal walls and dredging the shallow, canals (3 feet deep and the first foot is mud). According to Sergio, they pull thousands of bicycles from the canals each year. Essentially, that’s where bikes go to die.
We stopped by the university and Sergio pointed to a bridge behind us. “That’s where you go to buy a stolen bike. There are apps that you can download on your phone where you can put in an order for a specific bike and then they will steal it for you. Or, you can just choose one of the bikes on their website and then they meet you at the bridge for the exchange. I go through about three bikes a year.”
This explains why every bike I saw in the city was a total piece of crap, and yet they are locked with chains that could easily secure a boat anchor. The locks weigh as much as the bike. Apparently, that’s what it takes to deter theft.
As I mentioned, there are not many cars in the city, but as in all big cities, parking is tight. And most of the parking spaces are along the edges of the canals. I mean, right at the edge. Back in the 60’s, after numerous mishaps, the city finally bit the bullet and spent millions of euros to install two-feet-high metal railings around all of the canals to prevent the cars from going over the walls and into the drink.
There are some amazing old building lining the canals, many of which reminded me of my beloved Scotland.
But not all is old in Amsterdam. There were some trippy modern structures built on pilings at the water’s edge. Given the fact that the Netherlands, which is still referred to as the Low Countries, is essentially a giant swamp, and Amsterdam sits several feet below sea level, EVERY structure is built on pilings driven hundreds of feet down into the earth.
For my money, the best housing in town are the houseboats that line the canals. They are totally plugged into the electric grid, though many sported wind-powered generators to supplement power. Solar isn’t real big in a place where it rains so often.
The city fathers hate the houseboats, considering them squatters and an eyesore. But they have been there forever and if the authorities ever tried to move them, there would be a riot. In Amsterdam, they are what passes for affordable housing.
So, the best waterfront housing can be found moored to the canal walls. Most of the houses were formerly large commercial barges. Many are adorned with vegetation, like gardens, and we found the whole scene absolutely amazing!
Shopping is big in Amsterdam, and there are boutiques scattered all over town, but the clothes are mostly overpriced Italian or Chinese made. The Dutch fix stuff. Making clothes is not their thing. And, anyway, the most important piece of clothing is a raincoat. The largest shopping center is housed in a spectacular red brick building called Magna Place, just off the central square and and serviced by the extensive trolley system that operates within the city core. Public transportation and bikes are how most people get around. To hell with cars.
One of the more interesting stops on our tour was the Begijhof, formerly a convent dating back to the 14th century. We walked through a little archway and down a rabbit hole alley into an oasis of solitude where we were greeted by Amsterdam’s oldest wooden house (the black and white building below), called with pure Dutch pragmatism, the “old wooden house”. The Beguines were a Catholic order and this sanctuary was home to unmarried or widowed women who cared for the sick, poor, and elderly. The last Beguine died in 1971.
But as with most things Dutch, there’s a back story. In the 1600s, the Protestants defeated the Spanish Catholics and outlawed their religion. In 1671, two of the buildings opposite the original chapel entrance were converted into “secret” churches as mandated by the city authorities. They don’t look like a church, but rather, attractive houses. But inside there is a beautiful chapel. And in 1908, it was named the “Miracle Church” after the original Miracle Church that was burned to the ground by the Protestants.
And here’s where it gets amusing. Sister Cornelia Arens hated the Protestants so much that she told her fellow sisters that she did not want to be buried on the grounds of the Protestant chapel, and would prefer to be buried “in the gutter.” But when she died in 1654, the Protestants ignored her wishes and buried her in their graveyard (behind the black statue below). But the next day, her coffin was found lying in the gutter. This happened two more times until the Protestants gave up and allowed her to be buried in the gutter. We happened to be there when the lovely blue flowers above her grave were in bloom.
After weed, whores, and tulips, Amsterdam is best known for its cheeses and french fries. The secret to their fries is that they are first deep fried in animal fat. Yum! Yum!
Street chess is quite popular, and the Amsterdamers do it standing up with giant chess pieces. I’m not sure what they do with the pieces when the game is over.
Okay, let’s talk bathrooms. Bathrooms are very important when you are cruising around a busy city all day. In Amsterdam, most public bathrooms charge about 75 cents to use their facilities. For the men it’s easier and cheaper because the city provides outdoor bathrooms along the canals which consist of a wall with a drain on the ground, encircled by a perforated metal screen. They are usually painted green. Your best bet is to take a break every few hours at one of the zillion cafes around town, grab a frosty beverage, and then use their bathroom. The bathrooms in most places are rarely on the ground floor. They are either upstairs or down in the basement, and involve navigating steep, narrow flights of steps. The bathrooms themselves are tiny, about the size of a broom closet. But they are always clean.
The ancient Western Gate into the city is now a beer garden. Adaptive reuse of historic buildings, especially old churches, is much in vogue. In the tower on the right, the medical guild performed public autopsies. People paid to watch the doctors dissect a corpse, and this was the inspiration for one of Rembrandt’s first successful paintings.
On the south side of town, near the Museum District, we passed many eye candy homes.
My little tour ended back at the central square where I hung out for awhile, drinking beers and people watching. Street performers worked the crowds and it felt like I was sitting in the middle of a giant carnival.
One of the things I found quite interesting was how the Dutch interpret historic preservation. In my hometown of Annapolis, you have to get approval from the Historic Preservation Commission (at considerable expense) for anything you want to do to your house. And businesses are severely limited when it comes to advertising. So, check out the Burger King and KLM signs that light up at night atop the splendid old building below.
After three glorious days in Amsterdam, it was time for Inna and I to walk back to the train station and head a few hours south to Antwerp.
